Be All Her Sins Remembered
by ltcoljsheppard
Summary: Beneath his cool exterior, inside John Sheppard tried to come to terms with Teyla's revealed secret. This is in response to a group challenge: Emotions- reveal yourself


**Title: Be All Her Sins Remembered**

Author: ltcoljsheppard  
Genre: SGA

Characters: Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon

*** From stargatedrabbles list - Challenge #79 - Emotions, Reveal Yourself...

*** Spoilers for dialogue/scene from Be All My Sins Remembered, Season Four of SGA

Word Count: 1576

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Their rendezvous with Todd's Hive had gained them seven more war ships to fight the battle against the Replicators. Running into Larrin's Traveler fleet on the way back to New Lantea was a stroke of pure luck and had added another five battle readied cruisers to the allied coalition ready to face off with the Replicator vanguard. Now, Sheppard's Puddle Jumper flew over the ocean, heading towards the city.

After docking, John, Teyla and Ronon made their way out of the Jumper Bay. On the main floor, John and Ronon turned right as Teyla paused before going her own way.

"Just gonna check on McKay," John mentioned to them casually, " – see if he made any progress. Rodney had remained behind during the mission to recruit allies in the upcoming war so he could figure out a way to use the nannites against themselves.

Teyla spoke, to let her teammates know she wouldn't be following them. "I must go see Doctor Keller," she stated as casually as she could. She hoped to not have to reveal her secret yet, but John turned toward her.

"Why's that?" he asked, more curious than concerned. As he wasn't aware of anything out of the ordinary, he'd assumed it would be a social visit, but they were in the middle of an important strategic planning stage for the imminent battle.

"I was stunned," Teyla reminded him and John pulled a face at her vague answer.

"We get stunned all the time – shake it off," he told her, a bit surprised that a simple stunning would have someone like Teyla fretting over the after-effects. She was hardly a hypochondriac. That was McKay's expected response, not hers. Waving it off, he gestured for her to come along as he and Ronon turned to walk away, but Teyla held her spot.

"Circumstances are... different," she told him, trying desperately to ease into what she was about to be forced to reveal.

John and Ronon turned back to her, both still clearly oblivious to what she needed to tell them. Teyla hated doing it this way; this was not the way she imagined this moment. Her heart pounded in her chest as nervousness and near panic threatened to overtake her as John asked the inevitable next question.

"How so?"

Teyla just stared at him for a moment, feeling helpless and alone. His question was one of concern for her, but still he asked mostly out of curiosity rather than any real fear for her well-being. Why should he be concerned? He didn't know. She hadn't told him yet. She didn't want to tell him. Ever. But now, she had no choice.

Teyla took a breath and looked around to see if anyone else was nearby. This needed to be a private moment between her and John. She wasn't even sure if it should be done with Ronon standing there as witness but she'd had her moments to choose and she'd opted out of each of them. Until now. Sighing, she took a single hesitant step toward John, looking at him closely, carefully, as she finally revealed herself to him.

In a near whisper, she breathed out the words, "I am carrying a child."

Colonel Sheppard blinked, his eyebrows rising nearly to his hairline as he froze, staring at her in stunned disbelief. It had to be some sort of joke. Right?

"You're what?" he asked in an overly controlled manner as a burst of jealous rage roiled in his gut.

He and Ronon walked back toward her and stopped in front of her. John scowled at her as her words sank into his brain and Ronon, standing behind John's right shoulder, glanced between them.

Suddenly feeling a bit anxious for him to hear her and to understand now that it was out in the open, Teyla stepped closer to them. "I am pregnant, John."

John still scowled at her then asked, "Is this a joke?"

Teyla shook her head, her eyes lowered, as John turned to look at his companion. Ronon was staring at Teyla's belly when he realized Sheppard was glaring at him as if in accusation.

"Don't look at _me_!" Ronon said in self-defense.

Realizing John was angry and looking for someone to blame for this, Teyla told him, "It just happened."

Sheppard did everything physically possible to rein in his shock and anger. Both Teyla and Ronon had always suspected that John held a more intimate, personal attraction for the Athosian than he'd ever openly admit to and it was clearly evident to both of them that they hadn't been wrong in that conclusion.

Colonel Sheppard fought to keep his personal feelings at bay... but that rarely ever worked. Inside his guts twisted as he considered her words and what that meant. She'd been with someone. She'd been with someone... else.

"I ... I didn't know you were seeing anyone," he said as if leading her toward an explanation without really openly prying into her private affairs. It was, after all, obvious to him now that her feelings of friendship toward him weren't quite the same as his feelings toward her. He had mere seconds to hear this news and come to terms with what it all meant for him, his friendship with her, his feelings for her...

"It is no one from Atlantis," Teyla replied as if that should make all the difference. She knew it didn't though.

John's fight with himself was clear as his jaw tensed and his body became rigid with pent up anger. He did, however, succeed in keeping his voice low and level and his tone overly-calm as he asked the next most obviously expected question.

"How... far along _are _you?"

"About three months," Teyla answered honestly, resigned to the fact that he was angry and hurt and she couldn't blame him.

"Three," John re-stated. The single word could've been growled out for the way Ronon heard it and he looked to Sheppard concerned. "How long have you known?" John asked pointedly, still trying to find the justification he needed to be angry with her as her commander and nothing more. He couldn't face the "anything more", not then and certainly not at this moment.

"Just under two," Teyla admitted to him and John's sense of trust in her fell through the multi-layered floors of the tower into the depths of the ocean a mile below their feet. The look on John's face as he realized how far back her little secret went, stunned her into sudden silence. She could see his disappointment, the hurt, the anger... She could see it and both she and Ronon could feel it in the air around them; it was palpable. She had just broken his heart, shattered it, and he couldn't react to it openly. He couldn't.

"Two," John repeated quietly.

Teyla shifted slightly as she realized her secret wasn't the only thing she should've worried about as much as the length of time that she'd held it to herself. She'd purposely kept John out of this very important aspect of her life. She'd consciously kept it from him. He was her friend, if nothing more, and at the very least he was her team leader... and she'd failed him on both counts in this moment.

"We've been ... _You_," he amended, pointing his finger at her and making it clear that he wouldn't accept any of the blame for this one. "- let me put you out in the field when you've known you're three months pregnant."

Teyla suddenly felt defensive in the face of his controlled anger. She narrowed her eyes at him in challenge as Ronon stood nearby as witness to the moment. "I tried to tell you," she said through clenched teeth, as if it was his fault she kept it from him.

John didn't accept that for a second. "You didn't try hard _enough_," he shot back, obviously releasing a bit of his anger.

"I am more than capable of..."

"You got _stunned_ today," he reminded her before she went off on her own tangent about what pregnant women are normally capable of doing. "Do you have any idea what kind of effect that has?"

Thrown off by his sudden shift from friend to commander, Teyla tried again. "Athosian women remain _very_ active in the community well up to ---"

"This is different," Sheppard interrupted. "We get shot at, beat up, stunned. We take a chance _every time _we walk through the Gate."

"John..." she tried, imploring him as her friend in the hopes of sidestepping the military commander standing in front of her. But she knew John Sheppard too well and Teyla knew before she beseeched him by his first name. He'd already retreated from her on a personal level, to protect himself and his feelings, which she'd just crushed under her heel.

"As of this _second_, you are relieved from active duty."

Colonel Sheppard was seething inside, but succeeded in keeping his words from being forced through his teeth at her. Inside his chest burned with rage and pain, but he wouldn't show that, he couldn't show them that.

Both she and Ronon looked at him in surprise as he relieved her of active duty. Teyla's mouth dropped open even as Ronon frowned at his friend in dismay, but John simply turned and stormed away as the two friends watched him go.

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//End//


End file.
